Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. I’m a sports fan. And last weekend I caught the epic clash between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs, once again won by the Chiefs and the magical Patrick Mahomes. Yet seemingly no big NFL game is...
Thermonuclear Crack: The Death Wish of the ‘Elites’
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Isn’t it high time we “augment” our nuclear force “posture”? Shouldn’t we fight to achieve peace through nuclear “strength” and “deterrence”? Isn’t it smart to “refurbish, rebuild, and modernize” the nuclear...
William Astore on The American Cult of Bombing
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Back in August of 2014, I wrote a piece for TomDispatch on the American cult of bombing. The Air Force’s new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, was still on the drawing board a decade ago. The Air Force wanted...
Military Service Parochialism: All the Services Always Want More
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. A few days ago, I posted the following comment to a fine article that addressed America’s nuclear triad and the reality that we really only need the Navy’s nuclear submarine force for deterrence: My old...
America’s Merchants of Death Are Making a Killing
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Yesterday, the Merchants of Death Tribunal concluded with a verdict of “guilty” for all those U.S. dealers and exporters of weapons globally. Yes, the merchants of death are guilty as sin, even as they account...
Gaza: Cap Guns Versus Bazookas
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. If one side is armed with cap guns and the other with bazookas, would we call that a “war” between roughly equal powers? I thought of this as I turned to Antiwar.com to see that President Biden has approved...
Can We Ever Just Mind Our Own Business?
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Attacks on Iran are already being explored by the incoming Trump administration, which put me to mind of this article I wrote in 2016. Collectively, the U.S. government and its apparatus is the world’s biggest...
Daniel Ellsberg on Nuclear Weapons
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Is the U.S. military becoming a paper tiger whose sole remaining power move is a mighty nuclear roar? It’s a disturbing thought, given the extent to which U.S. military power is overstretched, recruiting...
How About a Winnable Nuclear Exchange, America?
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Like too many people, I sometimes make the mistake of talking about nuclear war, when it's really annihilation and genocide we're talking about. Wars have winners and losers. In nuclear "war," everyone loses....
The Trillion-Dollar Blob
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. In 2018, the Pentagon failed its first audit. In 2024, it failed its seventh audit in a row. The Pentagon has been “punished” for failing seven audits – and losing track of roughly $2 trillion in gear,...


